Trip to Oregon

So, it was the last official holiday of summer and it would be a waste not to do something to enjoy the nice weather and long weekend. H suggested we go to Gold Beach in the southern end of Oregon since he had an awsome time there last year. It took a bit of fanagaling (sp?), but K (H's friend) came with us. It was a really great trip, even though the drive was REALLY long (about 9-10 hours each way). The boat ride was the highlight of our trip. We took a jetboat which took us through some white water rapids through the Rogue River. Along the way, we saw a bunch of wildlife. A few seals, one of which was catching and eating a fish, bears, an elk, a beaver (which I was not able to find), numerous different kinds of birds, etc. I have never seen a bear that's not sleeping in its cage at the zoo before, so it was really cool to see one walking around in the wild. The boat pilot was haming it up and did some crazy stunts with the boat. It was a lot of fun. There was a fish market at the dock area. A poster advertising the end of the crab season sale at $5 each. H had wanted to buy them out, but settled for picking up two instead. Dinner was VERY plentiful as we stopped for dinner at the 3/4 way on our boat journey, ended up going back to our room to clean up, shower and relax a bit before heading out for dinner (there was a coupon involved). After that, we went back to our room, watched some TV, had some wine, and chowed down on the two crabs that we bought. As I mentioned earlier ... it was PLENTIFUL. We took our time heading home. Stopped at some pretty interesting places. Picked up a few cool things. Salmon jerkey at one place, kettle corn at a farmer's market. We also stopped at this lady's booth at the farmer's market and picked up a few pieces of natural soap each. Then we stopped at this Indian (Native-American) run place where they were smoking salmon by the roadside. See the yellow and white lines next to the fish on spikes. That's Hwy. 101! They weren't cheap, but they were quite good. H had this idea about getting his own smoker so he can make his own. Mysery of the Trees was our next stop. There was a giant Paul Bunyan and his blue cow out front. By giant, I meant HUGE. Paul must have been at least 4-5 stories tall. It was actually really weird since his eyes move, he can wave his hand and some guy kept talking as him to little kids by his feet. Overall, a cool trip, but I would probably want to stay longer next time. Just because the drive was so long.

My first box of organic goodies

So, they screwed up my order and I ended up receiving my first box of goodies this past Wednesday instead.

Among the loot: Eggplants, basil, heirloom tomatos, grapes, plums, yellow squash. I had meant to cook and share a meal at D's. He had other plans, and I had to go eat at my aunt's. So, we ended up doing it last night. I picked up a piece of fish (cod) and some ricotta cheese on my way. So here goes the menu:

Panfried fish with capers and butter sauce.
Pasta with ricotta cheese and tomatos, basil, squash.

Started salting some sliced eggplants, but ran out of time.

Food was good, even though D spent some time bitching about how the fish may be old, pasta's cold, etc.

Oh well, at least *I* enjoyed it.

Produce

It's the middle of summer and fruits and vegetables are bountiful. Went to the farmer's market this past weekend and bought some produce. The peaches were about 2 lbs. each and amazing. Sweet, juicy and oh so succulent. Oh, I'm drooling just thinking about them. Then there were the tomatos. Ripe, flavorful and robust. I also got a stick of walnut bagget. Crunchy on the outside and soft and chewy on the inside with just a bit of nutty crunch. Fresh mushrooms, fresh crunchy and sweet wax beans, interesting lemon cucumbers ... Colors, juicy, sweetness, flavors!

I got inspired by all that summer has to offer and decided to order me a produce box. These are grown by local farms and there are weekly varieties to fill a box of produce (fruits, vegetables and herb). I should be getting my very first (small) box today. The selection is supposed to be heirloom tomatos, cucumber, red flame grapes, galia melon, basil, and potatos. I can't wait!

Street Faires

I'm not normally a street faire person, but since the Feista Italiana was walking distance from home, I don't see why I should just pop in to see what the fuss was all about.

For a smallish faire, there were three separate stages of music. They rotate between jazz, rock, soul, etc. ... all day long.

It was quite a bit smaller than previous years. The vendors said it's probably due to the excessive heat this year.

I only stayed for less than half an hour before high-tailing it back home to the shade. Ended up picking up a couple pairs of sunglasses and a hair pin that I am still trying to figure out how to use.

Back to the subject at hand. FOOD! I'm usually on the look-out for something a little more unusual. There was a stand selling these fruit smoothies-like drinks. They advertised that if you like Orange Julius, you'll like their drinks. So I plunked down some cash and asked for an orange one. They whipped up some ice, juice (flavored syrup-mix?) and some mystery powder. Let me tell you. Don't let them tell you it's just like Orange Julius. It's not! I mean, flavor was pretty good, except it's not quite sweet enough for me. The ice was still a little too chunky and not whipped fine enough.

On to some fried street food. I opted for some fried artichoke hearts since I wasn't all that hungry. They deep fry them in batter and finished with a sprinkled the whole thing with some pama. cheese (straight from the green can). The end result was quite good. But then again, as my mom used to say ... I'll eat anything deep fried.

Kitchen Disasters

Found this the other day and thought it amusing.

http://boards.live.com/Lifestyleboards/thread.aspx?ThreadID=24911&BoardsParam

Of course, I have to add my own disaster stories ...

Even though I'm a pretty good cook now, I haven't always been. Mom's brillant in the kitchen, so ... for the first 20+ years of my life, I really didn't have a NEED to learn how to cook ... even though I sometimes have to urge to do so.

Chinese New Year day. I was probably about 19 or so. I decided to make something traditional. What could be easier than a simple chicken soup? I proceeded to add my ingredients (with some water) into a pot. Turned it on. Family wanted to go do dimsum. Who am I to turn down food? So off we went. When we finally came home, there was a thick dense layer of smoke all over the house. The smoke alarm was screaming its head off. I had left the pot on the stove on "high" and it had boiled itself dry. I went and got some pot holders and took it off the stove (I 'aint no dummy, didn't want to get burnt, you see). The entire bottom of the pot fell off and all I had in my hand was the handle with the outside portion of the pot. You can see right through the bottom (or where it used to be, at least). I was forbidden to use the kitchen for many years after that incident.

My family tend to be a bit of a coffee and tea snob. We like our tea from leaves and we like our coffee freshly grinded. When I got my first office job, my boss had somebody over for a meeting. She told me to go make some coffee for everybody. So off I went to the kitchen area. Unfortunately, all I found was this can of old instant coffee. The directions were fuzzy enough that I can't make out much of anything. I figure how different could it be than fresh ground, right? So I carefully measured out about a tablespoonful of the powder for each cup, and since I like them strong, I added another tablespoonful in the pot for good measure. When the meeting was finally over, I noticed that nobody touched their cup of coffee. My boss pulled me aside and told me to ask (my co-worker) to show me how to make coffee. Heehee, I didn't do it on purpose, but she has never asked me to make coffee for her again.

Two other incidents happened where I wasn't the direct contributor, but was a witness in the whole thing and probably, maybe a participant ...

Went to a friend's (mom's, actually) place for dinner with a group of people. We were all cooking in the kitchen. Some were chopping, some were washing, some were stirring something on the stove ... We needed to use the oven too, so somebody turned it on to pre-heat. What we didn't know was that her mom uses the oven to store stuff. There were mixing bowls, boiler pans, cookie sheets, and ... plastic boxes! We started smelling something awful and found that the plastic had melted in the hot oven. We were never invited to go back there to cook again.

The same friend bought a house and we were back to prepare another meal. Everything was pretty much set, except for a frozen lasagne which took forever to heat. So we were sitting around, bored and hungry. One guy found this lever thing on her oven door and said ... hey! This oven's really cool! It even has a lock on it so impatient folks like us wouldn't just keep opening it to check while it's cooking. What else to do? Of course we had to go and "lock" the oven! Well ... we found out the hard way that it wasn't just a lock. The thing activates the self-cleaning feature of her oven. As it got hotter and hotter and we couldn't unlock it to get the lasagne out, we realized the error of our ways and the oven was just in self-clean mode. There seem to be no way out of ruining our dinner. It took an electrical engineer (that's one of the friends present at the time) to turn off the oven's circuit at the breaker panel. Atlas our lasagna was saved.

Less I forget my baking disaster ... I decided to bake a cake one day. I was adding ingridents into the mixer. One by one they went. Everything was working out wonderfully when I realized that I didn't have enough sugar. I grew up in a house full of sugar-fiends, so having a complete lack of sugar is pretty much unheard of. There just must be some somewhere. Off I went to look ... none in the kitchen ... nope, not the garage shelves either. I finally found a jar in the pantry (not just for food, but for general storage ... just mostly food-stuff) of some granulated while stuff. I was overjoyed that I didn't have to make a special trip to the store to pick up more sugar in the middle of my cake-making project. I added the proper amount in my batter and baked it. It came out golden brown and looking wonderful. I sliced a piece and popped into my mouth and spit the thing right out. It was god-awful! Turns out the jar of while stuff I found was laundry detergent!

Then there was the drunken cake. Desserts have always been my favorites and my forte. Of course, looking at these stories, one must have their reservations about my claim. I decided to "wing" a cheesecake recipe and added some special flavors to it. As I was whipping up the mixture, I started pouring some Kalua liquor into my cheesecake mixture. I poured some, tasted it ... not enough Kalua taste. Poured some more, tasted it ... still the same. Repeat ... When I was finally satisfied of the way it smelled and tasted, I placed the cake carefully into a box and took it to a gathering I had with my friends. We had a nice dinner at their house and decided to have my dessert before we went off to see the movie. I sliced it up and put them on plates. One bite later, one of my friends apologized and told me that while it must have been good, but since he planned on being able to drive, he couldn't have any more of it. I finally tasted it. There was so much alcohol in it that smelling it burnt my nose! I think I must have used up about half a large bottle of the stuff for it. To this date, my friends still make fun of me and my alcoholic cake.

Tasty Brunch

So I was watching the Food Network over the weekend and saw this weekend brunch thing. Decided to use that same concept and bring it to work on Monday morning.

In a glass baking dish, tear up some pieces of bread and lay them out on the bottom of the dish to cover. Pour a egg and milk mixture over to soak them. Pieces of ham or canadian bacon goes over that. Next comes sliced bananas and then finally peach slices (fresh or canned). Sprinkle brown sugar and cinnamon over the whole thing and bake in a 350 degree oven for about half an hour (you should be able to see the egg custard mixture gets cooked.

Scoop and serve.

It's sort of an entire breakfast in one dish. French toast-y bread pudding-like substance on the bottom, fruits and meat all in one. Yum!

July 4th

With the warmer weather, I just haven't been very motivated to cook lately. Ok, so my idea of warmer weather's a balmy 60s to low 80s. But, hey, this is San Francisco!

So, for the day, I took part of my day and caught a few movies. X-men was fun. Not quite as good as the first two, and I thought the Phoenix story was really weak compared to the one from the original comic book version ... but still ... I just HAD to go see if.

Ended up hanging out with H and headed out to San Francisco for the fire works. Enjoy the pictures!

Restaurant setup

I went to Todai with H for dinner last night. For those who may be interested, Todai is a chain restaurant who serves all you can eat seafood and some other stuff. There's sushi, king crab, dungeness, and a lot of other things. Things are pretty good and we stuffed ourselves.

Halfway through dinner, we noticed that there is a kid sitting on a high chair with a large piece of tarp (garbage bag?) under the whole thing. H thought the parents probably have a really messy kid and wonder how messy the kid can get. We were both only mildly interested at this point and we were sitting a little too far away to receive much damage in case the kid blows up or something.

Turns out this must be the restaurant's policy as we noticed another kid with the same kind of setup.

I guess it's better than trying to vacuum up sticky goopy food that they may drop.

Unit of measurement

We had a potluck at work today. Everybody brought something, some brought more than one thing. It was fun. We had lots of food. Among the pickings are: rotisseri chicken, chicken masala, pasta salad, lassagne, corn beef, california rolls, roasted pepper salad, magarita cheesecake, snicker doodles, cubed cantalopes, shrimp cocktail and soda. There were 8 of us total and as you can probably tell ... we really loaded up on the food.

Everything was good, except we felt that the roasted pepper and pasta salads were too garlic-y. The guy who made them followed the recipes accordingly too. We didn't figured out the reason until after our whole meal and we were cleaning up. Turns out he thought a clove of garlic was what the rest of us considers a whole bulb. Good thing he didn't get his recipes from the Stinking Rose, whose signature dish is their famous 40-clove garlic chicken!

yummy spa-rific stuff

Ok, so this is not entirely food, but since it's food-related, I'll just stick it in here for safekeeping.

Foodstuff as spa products has grown out of my curious nature with kitchen experiments, so here are a few. Enjoy!

Scrubs:
Baking soda, sugar, salt all make excellent scrubs. Mix any of them with your favorite cleanser and instantly give yourself a post-microdermabrasion glow. Cetaphyll is an excellent, mild product that's good for any type of skin.

Masks:
Just about anything goopy works. For dryer skin, try oilier stuff like mashed avocado, banana, mayo, etc. I've heard people using honey, which is an anti-inflammatory agent, but I've never tried it for the sticky factor.

For oilier skin like mine, my favorite has been just plain yogurt. The stuff has lactic acid in it, helping skin renew itself. Mix to it some ground up oatmeal (I used a coffee grinder to ground mine up). Rub a generous dollop on. It acts as a scrub for a while when you're rubbing the goop on, then a mask when you're letting it dry. The leftovers make a lovely breakfast for yourself too.

Body moisturizers:
Reading the ingredient lists on a lot of the natural products, I've found that a lot of them contain stuff we have in our kitchen cabinets, or at least the cooking isle from the supermarkets. Grape seed oil, olive oil, sesame oil, almond oil. I haven't tried using these yet, since most of these have a pretty distinct aroma. I'll have to do a bit more research before trying them. I do believe that there may just be cosmetic grade oils for their specific use.

Bath bombs:
These have been really popular lately. Fragrant balls of fizz that's activated when they are in water. Some contain oils or different kinds of grease-type stuff like coco butter, shea butter, mango butter, coconut butter, etc. Be careful not to use too much oil as any kind of liquid sets off the bombs. You don't want them to start fizzing up before you're ready to use them. The basic recipe calls for just baking soda and citric acid. You can leave them loose and in a jar and just use scoopfuls of them at bath-time, or you can mist the dry mixture with some kind of a binding liquid like witch hazel, vitamin E oil, sweet almond oil, etc. and put the mixture into molds to form balls, or whatever other shape you choose. The butters can be mixed in after the dry ingredients are mixed and before the misting. Other stuff can be incorporated: corn starch to keep things smooth, Epsom salt as additional bath salt and water softening agent, dry flowers, etc.

Pick a dry day to make it. I made two batches. The first batch came out great; the second one started bubbling when I was trying to mold it. I used plastic Easter egg shapes and just filled the two halves and mashed them together. I haven't quite gotten the hang of keeping the two halves together when I unmold them, but will keep practicing.

Delancy Street

I've been trying to convince other people to go try new restaurants with me for some time now. For some reason, most people I know either don't have much of a taste bud to appreciate really good food (at least I don't think they can tell the difference between excellent food with ok food), or they would find a place they like and just keep going there and ordering the same foods each time.

Time for a change.

So I finally convinced D to go try out Delancy Street with me last week. I have wanted to try this place out for some time now. The restaurant is actually part of an organization to give training and sort of a last chance to people who would end of in jail (or prison) for a very long time. The organization provides training and services in a host of different areas. Restaurant, moving, Xmas sales, cleaning, etc. The entire "staff" live onsite, they work, they learn, in exchange for a new chance in life. They typically stay in the program for about 2 to 3 years and come out a "new" person.

I've heard a few of my friends talk about this place and even my aunt had talked about how the food was good and a great deal. So we went last Wednesday to try them out.

We shared an appetizer of crab cakes. I don't believe these were made with the local Dungeness crabs. Two pretty good sized crab cakes were presented on a bed of mixed greens. Very nicely presented and the cakes were pretty good too. D ordered pork ribs. It came with callard greens and a slice of sweet potato pie. The ribs were a little tough, but I guess it may be unfair to compare them with those from Houston's. Both of us agreed that the sauce was too tangy.
I ordered the rib-eye steak with whiskey sauce. It came with mashed potatos and squash (green and yellow). The whiskey sauce did not taste of whiskey, but I guess that's a good thing. The steak was a little over done (I had asked for medium rare, but it came medium). I chose to just eat it. Both the sides were really good. The mashed potatos was creamy without being too gluey and the squash were definately fresh and not from a frozen bag.

We were both too stuffed for dessert. All in all, the meal wasn't bad, but it wasn't excellent by any means. Overall, a place that I don't mind going back to, but wouldn't seek it out as a place that I crave going back to either.

Central California, Part 2

We spent the rest of our trip in Morro Bay. The Inn where we were at was quite nice, except for the bird santury right next to it. Birds were flying all about all day (and night). There were convenient window washing squeegies and fluids all around the parking lot. Sure enough, by the next morning, most cars were "hit". Aside from that, the place was really not bad. There was a seaside promonade which overlooks the Morro Bay "Rock" and local fishing boats.

We took off for breakfast with a bunch of other people the next morning (at 7AM!) The total trip took about 2 hours. The food was ok, but the view was great! Lots of photos later, while the rest of the group went to Hearst Castle, we split and went off the Cambria instead. By this time, I was getting kind of anxious to get my photos onto the computer for uploading and organizing. I was really looking forward to seeing a Radio Shack or something, but no such luck. Disappointed, we concluded that Cambria is just another ultra-tourist town with expensive everything and nothing useful or practical to sell.

After a very nice massage for both of us, we went to the "gala" dinner with the rest of the Lotus people. The setup was kind of strange. There was a no-host bar around for the reception and throughout the dinner, while at the same time, red and white wines were available at all the tables during dinner. D had the ceasar salad and I opted for the lobster bisque as our first course. Both were quite good. One of our dining companions was this guy who really LOVES his butter. When the rolls came by, he piled about 5 or 6 of those butter ball things and smashed them into his and chewed with such satisfaction that I can't help but smile (even though I was a little grossed out by the whole thought of it). The bisque was made with so much cream and butter (no wonder it was so good ... but super rich). Both D and I chose the halibut with toasted nuts and mango salsa. It was very tasty, but boy, that piece of fish was huge! I couldn't finish it all. Dessert was pretty chaotic as they set a bunch of bite sized stuff on one table in a corner, next to coffee and tea. Halfway through the presentation, EVERYONE got up and was moving around the room scoring dessert and coffee. Why they don't have trays of the stuff for each table is beyond me. All in all, food was a lot better than our dinner at the restaurant there the night before (we had a late lunch and chose a salad and a couple of appetizers as our dinner ... salad was nothing to really write home about ... good, but just a bit outdated in terms of creativity, the crab cakes were quite good ... not the best I've had, but pretty good none-the-less. The other appetizer was just not very memorable since I can't even recall what it was).

We ended up leaving about 6AM the next morning and skipping the concourse altogether. Storm clouds were moving in and it started drizzling when we left. We later found out that it rained REALLY HARD the rest of the day.

All in all, plenty of fun and a lot of different varieties of food throughout the whole trip.

Travelling

Eating on the go ...

Took a week off to go to Central California. I'm very excited about this trip since it was the first time I ever took Amtrak (train) going anywhere except the normal commute to San Francisco.

First off ... the train was delayed for almost 5 hours. Food at the San Jose station leaves little to be desired, so I decided to live on my meager provision of apple, dried fruits, etc. until I board the train so I can order some "real food" in the dining car. The train did not leave the station until close to 3PM (it was originally supposed to leave at 10:07AM), so by the time I settled down to my seat, I was famished. Too bad the dining car had just closed for lunch and I had to settle for overpriced "garden burger" from the snack bar for lunch. I waited until they started serving dinner before sitting down for what I hoped was a nice meal. My dining companions were a somewhat quiet bunch. Food was not as good as I had heard or hoped for. My Salisbury Steak was flavorful, but a bit on the dry and overcooked side. The roll was definitely dry. No amount of butter helped. The salad had seen better days, but I didn't really care since I was sooo hungry.

Upon arrival at San Luis Obispo, D was there to meet me and we went to an Italian restaurant right across from the train station. The restaurant was nice. There were fresh flowers everywhere. Bathroom was very nice and clean. Oh yes, the food was quite good too. We shared a pasta dish, salad and an absolutely amazing Caprese with really fresh mozarella.

We stayed at Pismo Beach that night. When I woke up, I found that the place was practically built right off the cliff overlooking the ocean. It was an awsome sight. Breakfast came complimentary with the room. I had a piece of waffle that I had to be really careful with since I fear it would crack the floor if I were to drop it. The rest of the food was pretty basic stuff with the sugary cereal, yogurt, etc.

Off to Santa Barbara we went and the scenery was quite different. We stayed at this place that was half a block away from the beach front boulevard. We walked along that several times during the course of our stay to get to the wharf and downtown. They have a public shuttle-bus which cost only 25¢ and takes you either along the beachfront or from the wharf to downtown. We took advantage of that a couple of times when time permits. Lunch was at a place called "Sage and Onion". The food was excellent, but it took much waiting to get them. I had their lunch special which allows either soup or salad (I opted for the creamy tomato soup, which was really good with the tomato being a bit roasted, I think and melted brei), a chicken breast sandwich with sundried tomato mayo and then creme brule for dessert. D had a roast duck spring roll (the sauce/chutney) was really good and the beef looked to be done quite nicely with a dab of cheese on top. Fresh lemonade was great.

The AAA office was very helpful as we got a chance to pick up some local maps and literature and pointers. Dinner was at a place that we had walked by earlier in the day. Service, again was not like we'd been used to from home. There was much hailing and waiting before we got what we wanted. The crab cakes were great. It was done east-coast style. Not made with the usual Dungeness crabs that I'd been used to, but still very enjoyable. D had parpadelle with roasted lamb and I had a sole picatta. Both were very good. We ended up having all our leftovers from both lunch and dinner the next morning for breakfast. Very nice way to go. Oh yes, we had converted our motel's sink into our overnight makeshift refrigerator both nights. It worked very well. Just leave the sink unplugged to drain water, wrap all your food in plastic and dump as many buckets of ice into it as it can hold.

We got to Buttonwillow yesterday. This place's major industry seems to be from its truckstop and its race track. Dining choices is pretty limited. In fact, the only non-fastfood places in town are Denny's and a BBQ place called the Willow Ranch or something like that. We ended up having BBQ for dinner and aside from giving you a lot of food, all pretty good, as a matter of fact, the service was pretty good. A little girl who must be about 8 or so was helping out and politely inquired if she may remove our dishes when we were done. We made sandwiches out of our leftover meat and our dinner rolls and saved them for emergency snack/lunch for today.

Off to the race track we were this morning. In order to allow himself a good night's sleep away from the snorer (me), we got separate rooms last night. Good thing too since I would no doubt been partly to blame as D had a pretty restless night. Lunch was a burger each at the snack bar. Weather was reported to be about 95-100 today. D looks miserable all day from the heat. I've been spending about half the day hiding out in the "meeting room" area where it was reported to be air conditioned. It really didn't feel like it, but anything helps. Will post pictures and more to follow later.

Eating Healthy

It's spring. People are out and about (when it's not raining, that is). Going on vacation and other spring-y stuff to do. Schools are out. My engineer took this opportune time to get a break from work and try to go on vacation. He ended up staying in town the entire week to help his parents move, but that's a different story. While he's out, I need to get somebody else to come in and do his job. H recommended one of his friends from school.

It all worked really well. The guy works very hard, but the stuff he eats leaves a little to be desired, in my opinion.

Dad's been in the hospital this whole week, and the last too; so my work schedule's been a little off because of my hospital visiting schedule.

Monday morning, the temp. guy apparently had very forcefully pursuaded R. to eat a beet, claiming that it's the healthiest thing one can eat and it's perfect for breakfast. When I got in to work, R. made a grimace-face and told me that he took a bite and the thing tasted like grass. As in turned out, it was just a raw beet, not cooked, no sauce or anything else. I mean, I love beets, but I like mine with a bit of salt and pepper, but most importantly, with some balsamic vinegar and olive oil. Oh yum!

Lunch this whole week has been either grilled or steamed vegetables with grilled chicken breast or grilled steak. No salt, but doused with lots of mustard. He proclaimed that mustard (French's) is about the healthiest thing with no carb, no sodium ... I just can't see how all that preservatives can be that good for you.

So, dinner with H. a couple of nights ago. During our conversation, he told me that the whole raw beet and mustard health-kick was all made up by him and a friend of his. Poor guy took it hook, line, and sinker and took it as gospel.

As for me, I can't see myself eating the same exact thing practically every single day with not a lick of salt. I mean, what's the enjoyment in that? Why even bother eating if it's only for survival? If it comes down to it, I think there's much more convient and faster health foods to be had.

A light cheesecake?

Yes, there is such a thing!

I was talking with one of my co-workers about how he really likes this fruit tart at his favorite bakery. He described the tart shell as being slightly lemony and the custard itself to be a little tangy and creamy, but kind of fluffy and light at the same time.

His description reminded me of something I sort of invented (well, at least made) a few years ago. I was determined to recreate it so he can see if it's pretty much what they were serving.

For the crust: I would normally be using crushed cookies with butter. Since I ran out of cookies, I decided to attempt a crust with no recipe. I ended up using about a couple of cups of flour, about a couple tablespoons of chilled butter, some sugar and some lemon zest to give it extra flavor, then cutting everything in, and pressing the dough into molds before baking them.

For the custard: I decided to use about a couple of blocks of cream cheese (I approximated since I got a giant block of it from Costco and it wasn't measured out). I added the juice of two lemons, zest from both of them, some sugar and mixed them together. I used the paddle attachment, but it turned out a tiny bit lumpy, so maybe I'll use the wisk instead next time. I put this aside into a glass bowl after it was all fluffy. Washed the original bowl really good with soap (I didn't buy any extra bowls) dried it. I whipped up the whites of about 4 eggs with a bit of sugar for flavor. After the egg whites gets a bit stiff with a shiny gloss to it, I folded this together with the cream cheese mixture carefully.

Scoop some of the custard into each baked cookie crust. Chill in refrigerator overnight. I was too lazy to turn these into fruit tarts. Normally, I would shave some white chocolates and put them on top for decoration. This time around, I decided to play with my new toy and used the blow torch to burn some color onto the top of the custard mount.

End result: The custard was really yummy, but maybe I should use a bit more lemon juice next time and use the whisk to reduce the cream cheese lumps. The cookie crust was pretty hard. I should probably use more butter to keep it flakier next time. Overall flavor was great, execution in concept was good, but needs a bit of fine tuning.

BTW, the egg whites were there to give the cream cheese a fluffier texture, thus making it feel lighter.

Since I'm such a cheapskate, I couldn't very well let those perfectly good egg yokes go to waste. I decided to make a cream brulee with them. I poured cream and sugar in, but the thing looked too thick and I wanted to add milk. Since I ran out and wanted to give it a bit more flavor without having it be lemon again, I scooped some strawberry yogart into the mix. Baked them with a water bath. Sprinkle sugar and torch the top after the mixture had a chance to cool. Results have yet to be determined since I'll be having that for dinnner tonight. But I did learn a valuable lesson from this. The crunchy carmel crust on top of creme brulees need to be done when the dessert was being served and not in advance. My beautiful caramel crust got all watery the next morning.

Fun with Farro

Just remembered that during my last trip to NYC, I went to a long family friend's place and got a taste of her veggie soup with farro. It was nutty and very good. I was suddenly inspired last week and picked up a bag of it while I was at the health food store.

So, part of my bug erradication process requires me to put things into glass jars from plastic bags and I couldn't put the entire bag's content into one jar. I had some diced tomatos in a pot I was using to poach eggs with. Into the pot I added some finely cut celery, carrots and some pieces of left over chicken for flavor, also a couple of bay leaves with salt and pepper. I poured a large handful of farro in and about half an hour later, the soup was finished. The result was delicious.

The soup has a slight nutty flavor, a bit thickened by the farro (much like barley). A nice, warm, hearty but not too heavy alternative to the usual thick soups that I favor. And no beans!

Travel with Oranges

H and I went skiing yesterday. It was a very good trip. We decided to forgo the usual 4 hour drive each way and opted to go on one of those ski bus trips. It was a very good deal and we get to sleep on the way there and watched a movie on the way back. Not a bad deal at all.

We knew it was a good deal when more and more people boarded the bus and most of them turned out to be Chinese people. Yeah ... we sure know how to find a bargain.

There was a woman sitting across the isle from us and she carried a whole bag of goodies with her for the bus ride. There was shrimp chips (crackers) and some kind of noodle stir fry or something ... and oranges. What's the deal with the oranges anyway? Pretty much every longish trip I've been on involved peeling oranges and eating them. Whether it's with my parents, my aunt, or even with my cousin ... there was always the oranges.

So ... near the end of our trip yesterday when the bus driver was about to drop everyone off, our trip host announced that tips to the driver would be appreciated. Some people left a tip, but our neighbors left a big bag of orange peels instead. How rude!

sick food

Been sick the last few days. No temperature, just really really tired and the whole sore throat, stuffy/runny nose, sinus headache and all that good stuff. I don't think I recall having a cold which knocks me out the way this one has been.

"Waie sick" (likes to eat) as I am, I even cancelled a much looked-forward to dinner with some friends of mine so I can stay home to rest.

I spent the entire weekend craving for nothing but soup-type comfort food. I ended up making a large pot of vegetable chowder last night and a beef and vegetable barley soup a night or two before that. The barley soup was pretty easy. I started out heating up some vegetable barley soup from TJ's. Something seems to be off ... so I decided to add a can of beef stew to it ... ummm ... much better.

The chowder started out as a clam chowder, but I only noticed that I don't have any clams at home after I got the thing started. I decided to add some corn to it and make it a corn chowder. The outcome wasn't bad. It was actually pretty good, except that it seems to be missing something. Yeah, I know ... clams!

Other old stand-by "sick food" was me has always been either "jook", which is a thick rice soup, or oatmeal. The jook, I usually like. Mom used to give us all kinds of other goodies to go with it when we used to have it for breakfast or lunch (roasted peanuts, pickled cabbage ...). Somehow, the oatmeal was not quite the same. Don't get me wrong, mom did they well. It was sweetened with sugar, usually made creamy with milk and curiously enough, an egg drop. It was good, but somehow, probably because our family don't usually eat a whole lot of oatmeal unless we were sick, I've always associated oatmeal with being sick; thus never really care of it much.

Well, off to the store I go for some clams so I can have some proper clam chowder.

Happy New Year!

There's been an increase of mention of Chinese "Comfort" food lately. There was an article this past week about "Hot Pot". It's oddly comforting to be sitting in front of a steaming pot of hot broth, throwing in whatever food item strikes your fancy (meat, veggies, seafood, tofu ...) especially when weather's a bit on the chilly side. We've been going through rainstorms lately. Yes, these are actually RAIN, not the usual drizzle that we Californians run to shelters for. Hot pot has been all I can think about the last few days for dinner. I went and drove by the Shabu-Shabu place near my house and they were PACKED! I guess I'll just have to wait for another night to go.

New Year's Eve was good. H and I went to D's house to cook up a seafood feast. We had originally wanted to get some crabs, but they were sold out everywhere I went. So ... we settled for some jumbo prawns, steamed clams and D made a large pot of clam chowder. All in all, it went well. I even brought along a bottle of champagne (gift from some vendor) and enjoyed it along with our meal. With my tolerance for alcohol, I had to go lie down soon after we finished with our meal. So ... while D and H were sitting there watching TV, and I was laying on the couch taking my much needed post-alcohol "nap". D was sitting next to where my head was and I kept hearing him clapping and trying to wake me up. Apparently, I was snoring rather loudly. All in all, it all went well ... even without the crabs.

One sidenote: the recipe for the clam chowder called for some flour to thicken it. D didn't have any. We ended up sending H around the block to borrow a cup from the restaurant we go to quite often. How neighbor-ly huh?

It's New Year's Day and we're sitting around waiting to go yum-cha. It's gonna be crowded!